Punch line: What goes into determining pay? Here are 8 tips to discover the salary you deserve.
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Excerpted from Forbes, “How To Figure Out What You Really Should Be Paid”
Not sure if your salary is commensurate with your skills and accomplishments?
Curious how your pay measures up to others’ in your field? Want to know what you’re really worth?
Here’s how to determine your value in the labor market:
Here’s a chart to calibrate your perspective …
The Fed Funds Rate currently running at about zero … that compares to a historical average of about 8% … and a peak of about 18% in the Carter years.
There’s only one way to go – up.
Imagine the fiscal crisis if if the interest rate on the $16 Trillion debt slides back up to the 8% historical average … or, gawd forbid, to the Carter-level rates.
Now, that would be a fiscal cliff !
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Follow on Twitter @KenHoma
Given Obama’s obsession with increasing tax rates on the “millionaires & billionaires” making more that $250,000 … and, given the GOP’s rhetoric that they want to protect small businesses … I can’t figure out why they don’t just treat business income reported on 1040s differently than ordinary income.
Specifically, in a prior post we said:
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A loyal Homa Files reader – who is a part-owner of a relatively small business — that will have his company hammered by Obama’s proposed tax rate change.
Here’s a paraphrase of his real life perspective:
“Personal income” should be just that, the take-home pay and revenue received by the individual worker and should exclude income listed on the K-1 in the personal tax return.
- Note: Income from S-Corps, LPs, etc., is conveyed via K-1s. The “corporate income tax” is, in effect, paid by the equity-holders and partners as personal income.
Example: Say an individual “earns” $250,000 and owns 5% of an S-Corp that earns $5MM
The individual gets allocated $250,000 (5% times $5 million) of the S-Corp’s earnings via a K-! … that $250,000 is rolled into the individual’s 1040 return.
- Important: the individual didn’t get any cash from the S-Corp, just an allocation of earnings.
Having broken the magical $250,000 threshold, Obama’s tax scheme would certify the individual as a “millionaire or billionaire” and jack up his tax rates to 39.6% … plus 3.8% in ObamaCare taxes since the income is “unearned”.
Think about that.
The highest corporate tax rate is 35% … the average corporate tax rate is much lower. Think, GE’s zero-percent rate.
But, under Obama’s plan this small business owner gets slapped with a tax rate of over 44%.
Does that sound right to you?
To make matters worse, the individual didn’t get any cash … just an allocation of earnings.
To pay the tax bill, he has to reach into personal funds … which are probably limited since he’s thrown his dough into the company … or, the S-Corp will have to distribute dividends to partially cover the individual’s tax liability.
If the S-Corp pays out dividends to partially fund the owners’ tax liability, the company has less money to invest in the business.
Does that make any sense?
Thanks to ST for feeding the lead
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Follow on Twitter @KenHoma >> Latest Posts
They focus on customer value.
McKinsey says that leading companies combine insights about customers, competitors, and costs to develop more innovative and cost-effective products.
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Excerpted from McKinsey Quarterly’s, “Designing products for value”
A rising tide of prosperity in developing economies is reshaping the nature of competition. Recognizing the challenges of the new environment, a few product makers … are taking a different approach.
Here are some examples:
Most press reports have said the Black Friday was boomville.
Really?
Not according to Gallup which reported that “self-reported spending” during the Black Friday weekend was down almost 20% from last year … from $103 to $84.
Hmmm.
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Follow on Twitter @KenHoma >> Latest Posts
Not necessarily.
Let’s walk through the logic.
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First, home price indices show that home prices have stopped falling … and arguably are increasing.
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And, relating home prices to equivalent property rental rates suggests that the bubble in home prices has been fully deflated and home prices should, at a minimum, creep upward.
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But, a CNBC analysis offers a sobering offset.
The NY Times ran an article titled “Complaints Aside, Most Face Lower Tax Burden Than in 1980”
The thesis of the article was predictable NYT: If you’re working, cough up more dough to the Feds and stop complaining … tax rates were higher in 1980.
Personally, I find that argument to be unmoving. I prefer to compare to 1860 when there was no Federal income tax.
The article also lobs the obligatory “57% think taxes should be raise on the rich”, i.e. anybody making a tad more than I am.
And the article references a Gallup survey that guarantees a chuckle: the nation is evenly divided between those who think their taxes are too high and those who think that their taxes are just about right.
Translation: Folks paying little or no Fed income tax think taxes are about right. Note: There’s that pesky 47% number again.
C’mon NYT, you can do better than this.
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On the plus side …
… the article links to a great interactive infographic that slices tax data since 1980 along key measures.
It’s worth playing around with … both for the info and because it’s a cool analytical tool.
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Follow on Twitter @KenHoma >> Latest Posts
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